Black Holes and Revelations
by Evangeline Christabella
Summary: *Silent Hill* Post SH 4. Jack and Claire James are confined to their apartment by the chains someone put on their door. They are grieving for their daughter when suddenly they hear her crying for them from a hole that has suddenly appeared in the wall...
1. The Hole

**Black Holes and Revelations**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Silent Hill, or anything that has to do with Silent Hill. I do, however, own Jack, Claire, and Aubrey, and anyone else I make up. New worlds, probably the old worlds too, instead of 21 Sacraments, it's something else. All new characters. Peace!!**

**Chapter 1:**

My head hurts. The air is too heavy in here now. It smells bad, like death. The way a corpse smells when it's been in the hot sun too long. It's also hot. Dreadfully hot. Claire and I lay here, with the comforter thrown on the floor at the foot of the bed, and the ceiling fan turned up to full speed. Even the ceiling fan can't make the room less hot. I turn over, looking to see if she's asleep. Her eyes are closed, but I doubt she's actually sleeping. She hasn't slept much. Not since our daughter died.

I look at Claire and remember a time when she used to smile. That was _before _our daughter died.

Aubrey would have been seventeen if she was still alive. She was killed in a car accident a year ago. She and her boyfriend, Brian both. Well, that's what the cops said anyway. Their bodies were never found. Only Brian's shitty Camero had been found. Of course, it was even shittier once it was wrapped around that light pole. All of this happened about a mile from where Claire and I lay now. It was on a road that led to the deserted ghost town, Silent Hill.

For the life of us, Claire and I couldn't figure out what they were doing up there. Aubrey was terrified of her own shadow. With the ghost stories that people made up about that town, there's no way that she would be up there snooping around. She would have been far too scared.

I shook thoughts of Aubrey away because I just couldn't take her smiling face in my head. Smiling her mother's smile. That gorgeous smile that I missed seeing from both of them. Thinking about how happy Aubrey had been, how she had been on top of the world, with her straight A's, colleges sending her scholarship offers, her perfect boyfriend, her friends that brought her so much joy... all of this saddened me beyond anything I'd ever felt. I opened my eyes and they landed on Claire again. Looking at her wasn't any better; Aubrey looked exactly like her. They were both so beautiful it was hard to take. Claire wore her light red hair straight, while Aubrey had worn her dark brown hair in curls that framed her face perfectly. Their hair style and color preference was the only difference between their looks. They both had bright blue eyes that pierced you in a good way, when they wanted a gaze to be loving, or in a bad way, when they wanted a glare to be harsh. They had the same straight white smile, and the same small nose. Yes, looking at my wife brought Aubrey back into my head.

I noticed that Claire was holding something. She had been holding it the entire time, but I was just now taking notice. It was the picture that she kept on her nightstand; Aubrey's last school photo. Claire had it pressed against her chest; she had probably stared at it until she couldn't stand it anymore. She blamed herself for Aubrey's death. She hated herself for letting Aubrey leave that day, even though she couldn't have known what was to happen that day. Even though no one watches their child leave the house and think that they won't be coming home.

I gently tried to pull the picture from her loose grasp, but she moaned softly and held it tighter. I took my hand away and rested it on her arm. Her body relaxed, and I realized that she was sleeping probably for the first time since this ordeal began.

The walls here scream Aubrey. Every part of this apartment has her on it. Every part of this whole complex reminds us of her. South Ashfield Heights holds Aubrey in this world. At least that's what it feels like. So why don't we leave? Why don't we move away and never come back? Why stay where memories of our perfect daughter haunt us? Simple. We can't. We are confined on this room by the chains on our door. They're on the inside, but how someone got in and put them there is a question we don't have an answer to. We've been stuck here for three days now. These circumstances mirror what happened to our neighbor. Henry Townshend, had disappeared without a trace, all of his things still in the rooms. His body had been found later, along with his neighbor's, Eileen Galvin. I remember how all of that had scared Aubrey, especially when she heard that the bodies had been found in Silent Hill. This story was one of the several she had heard that kept her away from the place. She had spoken to Eileen and Henry on many occasions, and when they disappeared and were then found murdered, both she and Claire and I all wondered what had happened. Who had killed Henry Townshend and Eileen Galvin?

I don't know what to do now. We can't stay in here forever. We'll die of starvation or of insanity. Even the windows won't open. Everything is sealed, as if God Himself made it fool proof. The phones don't work, the vents won't open, even the goddamn TV doesn't turn on! Who would do this? _How _could anyone do this?

I move my hand up to Claire's face, and gently stroke it with my thumb. Her hand comes up and rests over mine.

"Are you awake, baby?" I ask her, and she nods and moves closer to me. I wrap my arms around her rail thin body and kiss her forehead.

"I can't take this anymore, Jack." She whispers to me, her voice quivering as though it was about to break," How long can we stay like this?"

She is sobbing softly now. It brings tears to my eyes. I'd give just about anything to make her happy again. If only I could break the chains off of that door... Maybe getting out of this God-forsaken shithole would help her. What am I saying? Of course it would help her! Being confined to our apartment didn't exactly inspire happiness within her.

"Do you think..." She asks, tears falling from her eyes as she looks up at me," Do you think Aubrey is doing this? Is she keeping us here? Do you think that she knows that we were going to leave, and she's angry?"

"No. Aubrey doesn't have anything to do with this. Whoever chained the door shut is human, and Aubrey is..."

I stop, knowing not to say the word "dead." She can't handle that. I can't even believe that I almost said it. I hope that she didn't hear, but I know she did when her sobbing intensifies.

"I'm sorry, baby. I didn't think." I tell her, hoping that this will soothe her, and hating myself for making her upset.

She shakes her head, and kisses me quickly, telling me without words that it's ok. I hold her tighter and just let her cry against my chest.

"God, Aubrey..." She cries, not to me, but to Aubrey's ghost," You have to help us, honey..."

Out of nowhere, we both hear a loud crash. We sit up quickly, both of our hearts pounding in apprehension. Maybe the door got blasted off the hinges! Maybe we can get out!

I throw open our bedroom door and we both run down the hallway that leads to the kitchen and living room area. To our immense disappointment, the door is still chained from the inside, and we are still stuck. However, when I look down at the floor, I see a red slip of paper.

"Claire, stay here." I tell her as I walk forward cautiously. Was someone right outside the door? Were they good or bad? And what was this red slip of paper?

"What is it, Jack?" She asks as I walk back to her, my eyes glued to the red piece of paper.

I look at her, at her tear-stained face, into her still tearing eyes.

"It's from Aubrey." I tell her, my voice shaking as my heart pumped faster than I thought it possibly could," It's her handwriting. Look."

I hand the note to her, and her eyes widen slightly.

"Oh my God..." She smiles for the first time in months, as she scans over the writing, just looking at the huge neat writing that belonged to our daughter. Neither of us had even read what was written, we were just so thrilled and shocked to see her writing on the page. We both had held out hope that Aubrey was alive somewhere, that she had somehow escaped death when the car had hit the light pole. This note was proof that she had.

"Mom, Dad..." It read," Silent Hill." Blood smeared some of the writing, but we managed to pick out a few more words," Alive. The hole is the way. The way."

"What hole is she talking about?" I ask out loud as we stare at the note, as though the words would spell out their meaning in front of our eyes.

Claire just shook her head, looking as confused as I was. As we walk back towards the bedroom, a look came across her face. An instinctive look. The one that she got when her womanly intuition kicked up. Instead of going back into the bedroom, she opens the bathroom door, and as we stand in the doorway, we see that there is a hole a little bigger than the shower in the room. I walk towards it cautiously, feeling her hand gripping my arm, as we get closer to this hole that had manifested itself there.

Right in the opening, there is a broken pipe that had been severed in half when the hole had appeared. I grab it and rip it easily off of the wall. It is about five feet long, metal, light but it could be used as a weapon, in case we needed one.

I hear something coming from within the blackness of that hole. I strain my ears to hear, but as I get closer, it gets louder and louder. It is soft sobbing, and a girl's voice.

"Mommy... Daddy..." My heart practically jumps out of my chest as I look at Claire, who by the shocked look on her face was hearing it too.

"We have to go." She tells me, an urgency in her voice that I had heard only one other time before; when she was telling me that we had to get to the accident site where they found the car. She had clearly been thinking that once we got there, we'd be able to magically find Aubrey, that we'd be able to magically heal her. Needless to say... we never found her.

Like the last time, I took her urgency as a hint not to object, and I climb into the hole first, and then reach out to take her hand and help her in.

We are silent as we crawl through it. Once our bathroom is no longer in site, and once the light is gone, I wonder if maybe this had been a mistake. No end is in site, and my mind is thinking the worst. What if the hole had closed up again, and we would be stuck in here? Someone had clearly wanted us to stay put, and here we are, making an escape.

Aubrey's voice cried for us again, and this proved to be the motivation I needed. Both Claire and I started moving even faster, trying to get to her. She was really alive. She was really at the end of this tunnel, crying for us. Those last words of the note scream in my head, and they are the hope that is pulling me forward. I wouldn't stop until I found the end of this tunnel. I would keep going until I was back with Aubrey.

I pull my way along, Claire close behind, adrenaline pumping through us both. Up ahead, it looks like light is faintly on the walls, or maybe I'm just hallucinating. Maybe none of this is happening. Maybe I'm just crazy.

No, there is definately light on the walls. It's getting brighter and brighter as we round a corner and start moving towards it.

"Almost there." I assure Claire. She doesn't respond, I know she is deep in thought. Probably thinking of how she will react to seeing Aubrey alive. Thinking of all the things she had not been able to tell her that she could now tell her. I step out into the bright light, and reach my hand in for Claire to take. She grasps my hand and steps out. We both turn and look at where we're standing.

It's a convenience store, like a Rite Aid. The light streams in through the windows, and I see that outside, there is the main street of Silent Hill. A thick fog is covering the town, and the fog is even inside the store with us.

We can still here the soft sobbing from our daughter, and every once in awhile a "Mommy" or a "Daddy" is said. We both look around, wondering where it is coming from. Claire starts to walk towards the back, motherly instinct guiding her, and I follow closely behind. In the back of the store, back by the freezers, it's dark. In the corner, we see a shaking figure. Aubrey.

She is turned away from us, towards the wall. Her dark hair is even longer, cascading down to the middle of her back. Her body is trembling viciously with fear and because she is crying hysterically.

"Bree?" Claire walks forward, and something tells me to grab her. Something tells me to stop her. But I am so tempted to just run to Aubrey and hold her and tell her how much I love her that I follow Claire towards our little girl.

Claire turns Aubrey around and I hear her draw in a deep gasp. But I am so petrified and terrified by what I am seeing that I can't move or react at all.

The girl on the floor is not Aubrey. Well, maybe it is Aubrey. I don't know what that thing is. I don't know. I don't know.

Her face is mutilated beyond any recognition; her nose is gone, her lips are hanging off, one eyeball is out of the socket, and her other eye is swollen shut. Her neck snaps to one side suddenly, the bone jutting out at a sickly angle. Her limbs begin to contort and snap and she seems to be forcefully turned onto her stomach. Her hands slam to the floor, one facing towards the back wall even though she is facing us. Even her fingers are turned in all different directions, some are even missing. Her dark brown hair is in her face, until her broken neck snaps her head upward so she is looking right at me. I quickly grab Claire, and pull her away. She is in so much shock that she isn't screaming or crying or even moving. Her eyes stay glued to that... thing.

Aubrey, if that creature is Aubrey, begins to twitch violently, as though having a seizure. Her sobs have a certain echo to them that chills us both to our cores. A mutilated hand jerks forward and she pulls herself towards us. We both jump and back away quickly. Dead Aubrey must see this as a challenge, because she starts to move faster, her legs and arms moving in awkward ways at top speed. She is crawling along like a spider, her dead face never looking away from us.

We are both so horrified that we don't think to run. This is what our daughter has become? This is what she is doomed to be for all eternity?

We get into the light, and suddenly, Aubrey's mouth opens to twice it's size and she shrieks horribly and scurries backwards into the dark. That shriek echoes through my head, pounding my eardrums, and ripping my heart to shreds.

Claire is squeezing my hand, when all of a sudden, her grip lessens. I turn to her quickly and catch her as she collapses. I quickly lift her into my arms, and kick open the door of the convenience store. Through the window, I can see the back of the store where Aubrey is kneeling in the dark, staring at the wall again. That is what my daughter has become. This is what she is doomed to be for all eternity.

"Claire... Claire..." I look around, see that I have nowhere else to put her, so I lay her down on the sidewalk gently. I gently tap her cheek, thinking maybe this would bring her around. I put my hand under her nose, and feel that she is still breathing. The shock of seeing our daughter like that had just been too much for her.

I put my arm under her neck and bring her to a sitting position. I will just sit here and hold her until she wakes up. That is all I can do. I didn't realize it for awhile, but I am rocking back and forth slightly, whether it is a deep down subconscious way I show fear, or if it is to soothe Claire, I don't know.

That was what my daughter had become. That was what she was doomed to be for all eternity.

How could God be so cruel?

Author's Note: Update coming soon. Hope you all liked it!!


	2. Hell

**Black Holes and Revelations**

**Chapter 2**

As I sit and hold Claire, I see a shape out of the corner of my eye. I whip around, and see that there is a person walking into the bowling alley across the street. I don't get a good look at him or her because they are walking fast. They can't be a creature; creatures can't come out in light.

"Hey!" I call, but he or she is already inside. However, yelling has woken Claire up.

"Who are you yelling at? And what happened?" She asks as her hand touches her forehead. Maybe she has a headache, or maybe her head is spinning.

"I just saw someone walk into that bowling alley. Oh, and you fainted, by the..."  
I don't even finish because she is already standing and walking towards the door of the convenience store. She throws open the door and starts to go inside, but this time I do grab her.

"What are you doing? You saw what was in there!"

"That's my daughter, Jack! Maybe there's something I can do. I don't know, maybe I can save her..."

"I think the coal fumes are getting to you. I've heard that they'll kill you if you breathe them in too long."

"What are you talking about?" She asks impatiently and as though I'm talking nonsense.

"The coal fires that are still burning underneath us." I tell her, and the knowing look on her face tells me that she remembers hearing about it," Anyway, we need to go back through that hole and go home. That crying we heard, and that voice that sounded like Aubrey's crying for us, was just that..." I stop, searching for the right word, but I don't find one. "That" seemed to sum it up pretty well.

"That?" Claire repeats, her expression turning to disgust," Our daughter is now a 'that?'"

"That's not our..."

"That's what she is now, Jack!" Her voice is getting louder as gets angrier and angrier, but I realize that it isn't at me. She, like me, is still reeling over the fact that our daughter is stuck here forever, doomed to be that... thing," She's a 'that?"

Ok, maybe she is angry at me still. But that creature is not our daughter. I don't know what she thinks she's going to do by going to see it again. Does she think that by staring at it, that all of a sudden it's going to turn back into our beautiful Aubrey? Does she think that if she talks to it, it's going to just all of a sudden be Aubrey? She was kidding herself. But it's not like I could tell her that. Oh, fuck that! Of course I can break that piece of harsh reality to her.

"Claire, were you paying attention?!" I raise my voice at her, and she jumps and intinctively backs away from me. But I'm getting so pissed at her and her naivity that I don't really notice," Did you see what that thing was?! _That..._" I purposely stress the word so she knows I mean to say it," ..is not Aubrey! That..." I do it again because I can see that it's starting to upset her," ...is Aubrey's corpse come... alive or whatever the fuck it is! We are clearly in some sort of alternate universe, Claire, where these things are possible. Where holes in the wall leading to alternate universes are possible..." I'm rambling now, and I know that I'm not actually mad at her, but I am so devastated by what I've just seem that I can't help but take that out on someone," Do you want to go in and be a mother to that thing? Go ahead, be my guest."

She is squeezing the bridge of her nose; something she does when she's either frustrated or about to cry. I think both of those apply here.

I sigh, guilt taking over me. I know that she's not herself right now. She hasn't been herself for more than a year. I am always so careful not to upset her, and I'm not sure what made me snap. I see tears start to fall from her eyes, and I walk towards her, expecting her to back away from me again. I hold her as she cries for the thousandth time since Aubrey died.

"I'm sorry." She tells me, and I kiss her head.

"No, don't be sorry. I shouldn't have snapped on you. I'm sorry."

"It's ok. What are we gonna do? Why did that hole appear if..."

"I don't know. We're gonna figure this out, ok? At least we're out of the apartment for awhile though.." I tell her, with a small smile. We both laugh slightly at my bad joke and kiss quickly.

"Whoa, what is this?" A voice asks and we both jump and turn around, me putting her behind me quickly. There's a man standing there, about twenty five, if I had to guess. He was holding a gun on us, and his expression was steely and emotionless; he'd shoot us if he had to," Who are you two lovebirds?"

His dry sense of humor and his sarcasm are quite annoying, especially here. How can anyone have any sense of humor in a place like this?

He is looking mainly at me, but his eyes fall on Claire.

"Oh my God..." He put the gun down quickly, and laughed slightly," Aubrey's mother? Claire and Jack, right?"

I look at Claire, who looks shocked.

"Yes." She replied, walking out from in back of me," I'm Aubrey's mother. But Aubrey's... she's..." She looks at me to say it, because she's been unable to say that word "dead" or any of it's synonyms for the past year.

"Our daughter died a year ago. Her, um... she's in there, actually."

"No, she's not." The guy told us, laughing slightly," Oh..." He nodded and pointed at the convenience store," In here?"

"Yeah." I answer, amd he turns and goes inside the store. We follow him, and see that he's banging on the shelves.

"Aubrey!" He calls," Hey Aubrey! Come out and play, bitch!"

"Do you have to do that?" Claire asks, clearly annoyed.

"Ma'am, this thing..." Aubrey is in the dark snarling at this man, wanting to run out and kill him but knowing that she can't," That thing isn't your daughter. Oh, someone's in a bad mood today." He tells the thing," Come on, baby. Come to Daddy."

She leaps forward, and he shoots her dead in the eye socket. She falls to the ground, but isn't out yet. She twitches upwards, her broken arms lifting her. But she's gasping now, her mouth open wide again. We see that the sunlight is making her skin bubble and melt off.

"Adios, bitch." He yanks her head back, as she starts shrieking as the sunlight burns her face, and fires the gun at her face. She collapses, and Claire and I stare at her shriveling body in horror.

"That, lady and gentleman, was not your daughter. But I can take you to your daughter, if you'd like."

"What?" We both ask.

"Oh, Aubrey's up in the hotel, or what's left of the hotel. Walk with me." He tells us, and we follow him, trusting him even though we really had no reason to. He pulls a cigarette out of a pack that's in his pocket and lights up.

"Cigarette?" He offers us one, and we both refuse.

"Cool. I'm Luke, by the way." He puts the pack back in his pocket and as we pass the bowling alley, we see a man and a woman going inside.

"Yo, Tommy, pick up some more silver bullets. I just used my last ones on dead Aubrey."

"Dead Aubrey? You finally saw her?" He asked," Hey, who are they?"

"Aubrey's parents. We're going to the hotel. When will we see you two up there?"

"About a half hour. We need more food." The girl tells him.

We keep going until we are at the Silent Hill hotel.

"Some things you should know about our fair town..." He turns to us at the door," First of all, besides the humans here, nothing is as it seems. You two probably thought that was your daughter, right?"

"Of course we did. She was killed in a car accident, and that thing was..." Claire stops, not able to find the right words, but both me and this man knew what she was trying to say. Given the severity of the accident, that's probably what Aubrey's body would have looked like.

"Right, but things here... the things you'll see, they play on your vulneribilities. Remember that." We walk up the stairs of the hotel, taking in it's state of decay. We pass two other women along the way. They start talking in hushed whispers as we pass, and Claire looks at me. I try to keep the worry off of my face, but it's difficult. What if these people are all a bunch of psychopaths that are planning on killing us? But then again, he did save our lives. Dead Aubrey, as they seemed to like to call her around here, would have killed us had she gotten the chance. But he killed her before she could kill us, and that was our only motivation for trusting him.

"Fuck!' A female voice yells, and we both recognize it.

"Aubrey?" Mark asks, cautiously pushing open the door," I have company here to see you."

We both look into the room, and to our surprise, it is Aubrey that turns to face us. Claire runs forward, and they throw their arms around each other, both sobbing. Claire pulls away every few seconds, puts her hands on Aubrey's face and just looks at her, moving her long dark hair out of her face so she can get a better look at her face. Though Aubrey is whole, unlike that zombie Aubrey that we saw, something about her looks different; her body is smaller, her hair is slightly matted and her mascara and eyeliner were running down her face, making her tired and almost insanely horrified eyes look even more electrically blue.

"God, I've msised you both so much." Aubrey sobs, as she rests her head against Claire's chest and wraps her arms around her middle.

"You have no idea how much we've missed you. What happened, honey? How did you end up here?"

"I don't know." Bree replies as she looks at me, clearly trying to figure out why I haven't hugged her yet. Claire looks at me expectantly, and I walk forward and hug Aubrey, tears sliding out of my eyes finally. She really is alive. I am so afraid that this is just a dream and that I'm going to wake up and never see Aubrey again. But after a while, I realize that it isn't a dream. It's all real, and though I have no idea how all of this is possible, it's happening, and I don't want to think about why.

Once I let go of Aubrey, she quickly hugs Claire again. Claire holds her tight, and I see that she's still crying happy tears. She had prayed ever since the day that Aubrey died that maybe she was alive somewhere. And now, here she was, right in front of us.

"None of us know how we got here." Aubrey explains to us," But... we all had near death experiences before we showed up here. I got in the accident, and Marcus, who is eavesdropping..."

"Hi." Marcus came back into the room, and sat down on one of the dusty couches.

"Marcus was shot just outside of here."

"Oh my God." Claire replies, turning to face Marcus," You weer shot?"

"I was. Robbery. My girlfriend and I both were shot. I'm assuming she lived." His already pale skin is even whiter as he talks about this," I thought I saw her awhile ago. I thought it was her."

Something about him is changing as he talks about this, and Aubrey seems to be getting agitated. She runs her fingers through her hair, and grabs Claire's hand. Clearly what he's talking about is upsetting to her. Marcus notices how she's on the verge of tears and clears his throat.

"Either way... they only come out at night. Bree..."

Bree looks up at him, and dabs the tears away from her eyes.

"They only come out at night."

Though both Claire and I want to know what only comes out at night, we don't ask because we can see how upsetting the topic is to Aubrey. Aubrey lets go of Claire's hand and walks over to the window.

"How's it look out there, Bree?" Marcus asks her, standing up.

"The sun's going down. We gotta move." She reaches behind the couch and pulls out a 12 gauge shotgun. She tosses it to Marvus who catches it with one hand. She also pulls out a lead pipe, exactly like the one I had taken. I realize that it's still in my hand, even though I thought I had dropped it.

"Wow, Dad... great minds, huh?" She says, and hits the end of her pipe agaisnt the end of mine. I laugh and we sword fight brefly, playing around even though there something coming our way, something that both she and Marcus are scared of.

Just as I start thinking about what it could possibly be that they're afraid of, something that sounds like an air raid siren starts going off. Aubrey and I stop abruptly, and she whips around and looks at Marcus, her eyes wide with terror.

"Let's go."

Aubrey grabs my hand and grabs Claire's, and we run down the hallway of the hotel. Marcus leads us out into the street, and stops. We look swhere he's looking and see that there is what looks like a wave of darkness moving slowly towards us. We start running again, following Aubrey and Marcus towards the convenience store where dead Aubrey had been. The two women we had seen earlier are there, and they look frantic. We run inside the brightly lit convenience store, and Marcus and Aubrey stand by the door.

"Aubrey, go back there with your parents."

"Both of you need to get away from the door!" A male voice yells from behind us. We turn, and to our shock, there is Henry Townshend, and behind him, grasping his arm, is Eileen Galvin. Henry touches Claire's arm as he passes, and for some reason, I defensively put my arm around her, as though staking my territory. He notices, but keeps walking towards the front of the store. I had always been slgihtly suspicious of the two of them, but had never said anything. In the back of my mind, I knew that he had just touched her arm as a greeting, a gesture saying," Nice to see you." But that didn't stop me from holding her close to let him know that she was mine.

"Henry!" Eileen called after him, running forward to pull him back inside.

To my horror, I saw that Eileen was missing an eye, and had on an eye patch. Her arm was in a cast, but she didn't seem like she was in pain. I thought she was dead, same as I thought Henry was dead. But I also thought Aubrey was dead. Nothing was making sense.

" Come on, Jeremiah!" Marcus was yelling to a guy that was still outside.

"Shit, we have to close the door!" Henry told him.

"Jeremiah is still out there! So is Christine! We can't just leave them!" Aubrey exclaims.

"We have to, Aubrey." Henry tells her, his voice firm yet carrying a hint of guilt," Close it, Marcus."

Marcus shut his eyes, and slams the door shut. He backs away, and pulls Aubrey with him. Aubrey squeezes her eyes shut and buries her face in Claire's neck. Claire kisses her head and looks at me, her expression asking me what the hell was going on. I wish to God I knew an answer to that question.

"What's out there?" I ask, my curiosity getting the best of me.

Henry laughs slightly, and kisses Eileen's head before answering," Hell. That's what's out there."


	3. Waiting

**Black Holes and Revelations**

**Chapter 3**

**SSS**

A/N: This is the only story that I keep getting negative reviews on. I can't say I honestly care; like I've said a thousand times, this is a website, not The New York Times. Sorry if you don't like it, but here's a simple solutions; DON'T READ IT!

**SSS**

We sit in silence for a good long while. Aubrey rocks back and forth, clearly on the verge of tears. Claire whispers to her, rubs her back, kisses her forehead; all the things a mother does to comfort her child. I watch as Aubrey grasps Claire's hands, and as tears begin falling from her eyes.

"Shh..." Claire doesn't know what else to say to her, nor do I. We both have no idea what's outside the walls that surround us.

"I want to go home, Mom." Aubrey whispers to her, and Eileen comes over to her.

"It's ok, sweetie." Eileen tells her softly," It's going to be over soon. I promise."

"Does she always get like this?" I ask Henry, who nods and continues to look at her.

"I think Bree hates this shithole more than all of us put together. But at least you all are here with her now."

"Is there absolutely no way out of here?"

Henry laughs slightly, and replied," No. We've pretty much decided thtt if there was, we would have found it by now."

"Look... when we cme here, we came through a hole in the wall. It lead us to the bowling alley. Maybe we can all go through there."

"That's how I got here too. Eventually, the hole disappears."

His pessimism annoys me. I contemplate hitting him, grabbing him and telling him to think of a way to get us out of here, but honestly, he's bigger than me, and holding a shotgun. My prospects of kicking his ass without a weapon aren't good.

"Plus, I'm willing to bet that your room has strangely sealed itself, right?'

"How did you know?"

"How do you think I got here?" He asks before walking away.

When I look back at Claire and Aubrey, I see that Aubrey has her head rested under Claire's, and that Claire is stroking her hair. I was always jealous of their relationship; not so much of the fact that Claire was closer to Aubrey than I ever could be, but because Claire always focused all of her attention on Aubrey. It sounds selfish, and I mentally reprimand myself for thinking this way, but I always almost... _resented _my own daughter because she was my wife's top priority, a position I once occupied. I hated myself for feeling that way and still do. If this is hell, as Henry told me it was, then I deserved to be here for having these thoughts.

There is a deafening shriek outside the door, but it isn't a human. Jake goes to look through a miniscule hole in the door.

"Pyramid-head." He whispers," Everyone be quiet, stay low to the floor."

I wonder what could possibly have a pyramid-shaped head, if this things name is literal. I almost don't want to picture it. Aubrey's tears stop suddenly, and fearlessness pours from her like rain. The tears that she doesn't wipe away dry, and she gently pushes Claire down so she's close to the floor. Jacob, Henry, and Aubrey stand facing the door, holding their weapons. I never pictured my daughter as a gunslinger, but when she flips from tears to fortitude in two seconds flat, she seems to fit the title well. The shrieking noise fades, and the three standing visibly sigh with relief.

"Ok, everyone, it's good. The darkness should be clearing zoon."

"It's late, Henry. We might as well stay here." Eileen tells him with a yawn.

For the first time I notice that there are cots spread all over the room. This is where they all sleep.

"Aubrey, I'm sure you and your mom can fit in your bed, and Jack, you can have my bed." Jake tells me.

"No, no, man... I'm not tired. It's ok." I reply, not wanting to steal the poor guy's bed.

"No, seriously, it's my night to stay up and keep watch."

If I wasn't so tired suddenly, I would have refused his bed still. He helps me pull it over beside Aubrey and Claire who are already cuddled together, falling asleep. I swallow the feelings of resentment and jealousy and lay down to go to sleep. One day back with my previously thought to be deceased daughter, and already, I'm complaining. What the fuck kind of a father am I?

SSS

I wake up to a scream the next morning. My eyes shoot open, and I sit up, terrified of finding someone dead or dying. I find no corpses when I turn around, but to my horror, I see that Aubrey is missing. Claire is crying hysterically, and Eileen tries to comfort her, but she is inconsolable. Jake, normally composed and fearless, looks terrified as he turns and runs out of the store, calling Aubrey's name.

"She wouldn't go off by herself. She's smarter than that!" Henry snaps at Jeremiah, clearly infuriated at the suggestion that Aubrey ran off. He takes off after Jake, and after gently touching Claire's arm to comfort her, I tell her I'll be back and run after Henry.

The feelings I had last night have resided and they feel alien to me now. Maybe it was just the stress of the day fucking with my head, making me think bad things about my daughter. Whatever the reason, I feel no acrimony towards my daughter anymore.

I mentally swear on my soul that I won't lose her again. I won't watch Claire suffer her loss all over again, and I won't grieve for my daughter again.

Even if the impending darkness strikes, and I know that it will, I will not go back to the hotel without Aubrey.


End file.
